Time of Monsters

Do we still believe in progress? In this wonderfully clarifying essay, Waleed Aly examines what happened to liberalism. As a set of ideas, it offered equality and guaranteed freedoms. But more and more, we live in a post-liberal world.

Aly maps the new politics arising – both conservative and progressive – as mainstream politics loses its appeal. He examines the battles over identity, injustice and speech, and discusses the way instability has become central to contemporary life. When did freedom start to feel so unfree?

This is a supple and original essay about the forces transforming our politics.

"Is this what it looks like when an old order dies? … Liberalism's confidence that humans are ultimately progressive beings seems to have overlooked how much we value stability, predictability and meaning. Our age of discontent stems directly from the sense that things are unmoored and beyond our grasp; that we are serving the system, rather than it serving us."—Waleed Aly, Time of Monsters

'Aly's extensive evidence shows that liberalism is listless . . . we owe him much for restating the case for older forms of political liberty' —Pearls and Irritations